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ECM eConnection - February 1, 2011

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More Than a Game - A Game Changer

IBM’s celebrated supercomputer Watson will square off against Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a first-of-its-kind competition to be aired over three nights in February.

“Watson is the latest example of IBM's 100-year history of scientific discovery. We are still pushing the frontiers today, in many dimensions of technology and how it is applied to make our world work better. Like Deep Blue, the IBM supercomputer that defeated the reigning world chess champion in 1997, Watson represents a major leap in the capacity of information technology systems to identify patterns, gain critical insight and enhance decision-making despite daunting complexity. Specifically, it represents a major advance in what is called “Deep Question Answering” technology – the ability of a computer to do something that’s far more challenging than chess: to understand natural human speech about a limitless range of topics, and to make informed judgments about them.” From Sam Palmisano, IBM Chairman and CEO.

The Age of Analytics

In going beyond Watson we can apply similar analytics technology to different data sources which can help achieve smarter outcomes to everyday problems. If not for the exponential advances in processing power the world has seen over the last several years, a project like Watson would never have made such dramatic progress. The DeepQA technology that powers Watson is, in essence, proof that we are entering a new age in computing – an Age of Analytics. Technology that makes IBM Content Analytics so powerful.